1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric camera on the bottom of which a tripod mounting screw is formed to mount a tripod.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, in cameras, the setting of conditions such as the shutter speed, the f-number, etc. is widely carried out by digital signals from selection buttons and an electronic dial and those contents and changes of conditions are displayed on an LCD panel or the like.
Referring to FIG. 1, an electronic dial 2 and an LCD panel 3 are provided on an upper surface 1a of a camera 1 and selection buttons 4, 5, 6 and 7 are provided on an upper surface 1b of the camera 1. The electronic dial 2 generates pulses in accordance with its rotation. When the electronic dial 2 is operated alone, the setting of a shutter speed is carried out. On the other hand, when it is operated together with one of the selection buttons 4 to 7, in accordance with the kind of selection button, e.g., the setting of an exposure correction is carried out. Those setting contents or the results of changes of conditions of the camera in accordance with the setting contents are displayed on the LCD panel 3.
On the other hand, in many cameras, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, a tripod mounting screw 101 is formed in the bottom portion of a camera body 102 so as to mount a tripod. Also, in recent electric cameras, it is necessary to house cells in the camera body 102, but from the relationship between space and weight, cells 103c and 103d are contained in a bottom portion 102a of the camera body 102 so as to interpose a tripod mounting screw 101 between them.
Owing to the development of various techniques such as an AF technique, etc., functions of cameras have been increasing in number recently. As a result, operating members and display contents need to be increased in number. Particularly, it is necessary to make the display portion large to secure observability of the display contents while increasing the number of display contents. However, the sizes of cameras are limited due to miniaturization, so that it is difficult to comply with the achievement of the observability of the display contents and the increase of the numbers of operating members and display contents.
Also, when operating a lens 104, a projected portion 102b of the front surface of the camera body 102 (left side in FIG. 3) interferes with the hands of an end-user, which decreases operability.
Also, since the bar-like cells 103a to 103h and the tripod mounting screw 101 are contained in the bottom portion of the same camera body 102, an efficiency in space utilization of the bottom portion of the camera body is poor so that there is room for improvement in miniaturization of the cameras.